Soldiers Last Forever

The day started off ordinarily enough; Jim rolled himself out of his mosquito netting, donned his jungle greens and shook out his boots to evict scorpions and spiders. The rain finger-tapped a tattoo on the plastic, domed, tent overlay, while the cloying wind p0romised more heat. It always seemed strange to Jim that extraordinary days began with routine and order. Last week for instance he had been involved in guerrilla warfare, fighting hand-to-hand combat in silence so as not to disturb the nests of killer bees that swarmed the valley. Five weeks before that, he and his platoon had been lined up and injected with an unknown substance that caused his bones to tingle, “immunization.“ the medic grunted, but against what no one would say. He didn’t question it though because that was the way things were since the war began. Unlike most of his comrades Jim welcomed the war. He loved the feel of the trenches around him, he found comradeship in shared jokes and cigarettes from men who had despised or ignored him before the war. He enjoyed the physical exertion of digging trenches and had no problem with firing a gun, not at wild beasts or at humans. He slept well at night despite the smoke and noise and was reasonably satisfied as long as someone told him where to go, what to do and fed him regularly. He had earned sergeant’s stipes early, partly because of his age, wit and physical fitness but had risen no farther because of his simmering anger and the number of times he had been locked up for assault.

He had been a forty-five-year-old gravedigger before the war but he had been facing redundancy because no one wanted burying anymore, in fact very few died since Everlast had come onto the market. His stiff upper lip had begun to sag and his firm moustache and wiry hair had begun to wilt and turn grey before its time. The constant physical exercise had kept his body in good shape but it too was beginning to show signs of age and worry lines formed furrows that became deep crevasses when he thought of his bleak future. ‘If it was not for Everlast…’ he thought bitterly, and that seemed to sum up all his worries and discontent.

Everlast was painful and expensive but it seemed rich and poor alike wanted it. The rich demanded it in the same way they had demanded liposuction a century before. The poor starved their children and sold their houses so that they could have it. It didn’t give the promise of eternal youth but it came damn near close. Everlast was a synthetic that had been created as a way of controlling the growth of cancer cells. Initially the drug stopped the cancers cold but the side effects were so devastating many recipients went into toxic shock and died. Janet, his wife was one of the first to be tested; she was so desperate to have children and cancer had already claimed one of her ovaries that when the symptoms re-occurred she went straight to her doctor and demanded to be in the test group.

Jim had known nothing about this and six weeks later she was dead. Whether it was from the cancer or the drug he never knew, all he knew was that the mortician couldn’t wipe the look of agony from her face no matter how hard he tried. Twelve years later Jim still had nightmares about that look. It was the only thing that gave him nightmares. Everything else was a shadowy haze. Janet’s death had thrown him into turmoil, he didn’t sleep for weeks and his smelled like a sewer rather than a gravedigger. His boss threatened to fire him, long before grave digging became an endangered occupation; he managed to clean himself up and pull himself together enough so that his boss never carried out the threat but he cared less than the dead he buried.

When Everlast was marketed, four years after Janet’s death people were looking for a miracle. They didn’t get it. There were as many dead buried from disease and accidents as previously, but within six months the death rate from disease slowed to a trickle. People who had taken Everlast over the testing time had discovered that cancerous cells died instantly, and the organs previously infected with cancer became encased in formaldehyde like preservation that never wore off. The only side effect, once the drug had been implanted in the organs or bone marrow, was the sickly smell of decay that lingered. Everlast and perfume sales went through the roof. Between the discovery and the war Jim became morbidly fascinated at looking at those who had died by accident and who had also taken Everlast. He broke the silicon seal on the coffins more than once, to gaze down on faces that had botox stiffness and looked vaguely surprised that death had caught them unawares. He never again saw the look of agony that he had seen on Janet’s face but he plotted revenge anyway because Everlast had stolen his love and was stealing his livelihood.

Soon it was soon sold everywhere. Some pharmaceutical companies made millions while others went broke trying to synthesise copies. It became a financial battle between the rich and richer and may have remained that way indefinitely had it not been for the fact that someone in Khevorkonia discovered that the components of Everlast could be mined and mixed to make a natural formula that was cheaper and easier on the body. Demand skyrocketed and as a consequence the war began.

Jim was one of the first to sign up. It was not that he was feeling patriotic; in fact the reverse was true. He hoped that the war would stop or at least slow the manufacture of Everlast, and if he got the chance he was going to blow up the factories so that Everlast production would stop forever and the world would return to normal when people lived and died at their own pace.

However that was at the beginning of the war, seven long years ago. Now he managed each day as it came, too worried about the venomous bugs and snakes to really care about Everlast destruction. Today promised to be no different. The platoon had been edging closer to a camouflaged mine entrance for nearly a week now. Jim knew that the factory was close to the mine for convenience; he smelled the scent of decay from the Everlast fumes and he warned his men to go easy, take it slowly and approach with caution. He could hear the whispered words of direction and encouragement on the clammy air, as they moved through the rough undergrowth and dense vegetation. He heard a man stumble, fall and curse and dropped his arm to indicate they were to remain still. They slumped, silent and unmoving where they had stood. Their greased faces blended into the jungle foliage and they became invisible except for their eyes, which flickered around showing their fear. He went back to the man and noted that there were crosses and grave tokens; warn offs marking the track. ‘A graveyard’ he thought ‘we’re trampling on graves ’ and he shivered despite the warmth of the day because some of the plots were tiny, children’s graves. The smell of decay and Everlast was overpowering here and he wondered what he would find if he dug up the graves. They stretched away into the gloom of the jungle as far as he could see; some were overgrown and no more than a tangle of weeds, but the closer ones were fresh. The rain had caused swampy puddles in the new turned earth but the rising heat was already making them steam. The soldier had fallen into one of the unstable graves and he was transfixed by something within that grave. When Jim looked he saw a partly decomposed body of a child with a botox look, a smell of phosphorous and a slit throat, but none of these things had captured the soldier’s attention. Jim looked down and saw that there was movement beneath the corrupted skin. Then out of the throat slit, swarmed mosquito like insects but of a size of a dragonfly and with sharp pointed fangs that dripped yellow venom and smelled of Everlast. Jim screamed, “RUN!” without thought of silence or stealth. His platoon responded instantly and several had managed to take a few steps before they were stung. Once stung they fell instantly, clawing at throats and gasping as they tried to breathe through congested airways. Jim felt the stings of the insects and fell to the ground with the others, but fought against the desire to lie there and let the world fade. Instead he forced himself to move and his ragged breathing steadied as he drew fresh air into his lungs although he hurt and felt flushed and feverish. His vision was shattered, prism fragmented and he saw at many different levels as he staggered away, carefully from the scene where his men lay dead and dying. He could not help them.

He plodded on blind and disoriented, amazed that he had survived but not the least grateful. Memories of Janet, her life - her death came and went with vivid clarity, re-opening old wounds and renewing grief afresh. He was unaware of reality when he finally staggered into base camp. Janet was close by helping him, encouraging him and he called out in anguish when she faded and disappeared. Then he drifted in and out of consciousness and heard snatches of conversation that made no sense at the time. “Everlast contagion…” “It lives on in the bones…” “Must have never taken it…” “It mutates, that’s what we’re fighting now…” “Thousands dead at home, possibly millions by 2020…” “Can’t bury them anymore…have to burn them to kill the spore…” “ We’re looking at training six and seven year olds, they’re the only ones who are free of Everlast. Have to recruit the uncontaminated and train them to do what Jim did.” At the last fragment, Jim vaguely remembered the questions from men in uniform, but could not remember what he’d answered.

When he came to himself months later, he learned he was in an isolation ward at the George Henry, a hospital in his hometown. He had been lucky, they said. He would be immune from the effects of Everlast contagion for the rest of his life and it was going to be a very long life, because those who survived the mutated fly bites showed no sign of ageing and had spontaneously recovered from minor injuries. Of course, because he was patient zero, he would need to spend that time under surveillance so they could continue testing and be alert to early warning signs of mutation and ageing. However because of him they had learned so much about the cure already that when the six year olds finished their compulsory ten-year stint in the army they could still expect to come home and live very long and healthy lives.

A congressman came, gloved and gowned and awarded him a medal for valour. He threw it away and turned his face to the wall. He wished for death but no matter hard he tried he could not die. Everyday he was monitored, managed, coddled and tested, while every night he lay awake and watched the Everlast revenge as scores of children marched past and accused him with reproachful eyes and dead, botox smiles.